


Lost and Found

by TwistofAPen



Category: Travelers (TV)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Protective Team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-02 22:55:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15806214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwistofAPen/pseuds/TwistofAPen
Summary: The grief tears at him - it leaves him exhausted.(In which Maclaren struggles to deal with things, and the team are there for him. A kind of coda to S2E9.)





	Lost and Found

“Go be with your wife,” Hall says, and a part of him thinks _, fuck you. You don’t tell me what to do._ The rest of him thinks, _he’s right._

His team is watching him, and they are silent, they are awaiting his reaction.

 He leaves.

 

-

 

 The hospital ward is quiet when he reaches. He goes into Kat’s room and sits down next to the bed. She’s asleep, tight lines against the corners of her eyes; chapped lips. Light dances off the edges of her cheekbones, her hair.

 He touches her hand, and she wakes up. She looks at him. Her eyes are filled with shadows.

“Mac,” she says softly.

_I know. I’m sorry._

“I’m here,” Mac says, and brings her hand up to his lips.

They sit together as evening drifts through the hospital window. Mac stays until she falls asleep and then he stays some more, watching the soft exhales of breath, the rise and fall of her chest, the hand curled limply around her stomach.

The nurses kick him out at ten, kind but firm. He spends fifteen minutes looking for his car and another five looking for his parking ticket before he manages to leave.

One of the team contacts him as he’s driving home, _hey boss, uh, just checking in, everything okay?_ He pulls himself together long enough to tell them that he’s alright, he’s fine, thank you for your concern, before disabling the comms completely.

 

-

 

The apartment is dark when he reaches home. He switches on the lights and the room illuminates in razor sharp relief and the emptiness screams at him. He switches the lights back off. Moonlight glows dimly through the skylight panes as he pulls off his tie and drops onto the couch.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep.

 

-

 

It’s night. He’s standing outside a motel room. Katherine is at home in bed, asleep.

He knocks. Waits.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Hall says when he opens the door.

It’s a fairly good question.

“I just…” He stops. The words catch on his throat; all of this suddenly seems so stupid. Hall looks at him, waiting, and there’s something like pity in his eyes.

Mac turns away. “Nevermind. This was a mistake.”

He hears a sigh as he walks away, a soft mutter: _Jesus Christ_. And then, louder: “Maclaren.”

He stops, and footsteps come up behind him.

“Listen to me,” Hall says. “You gotta remember who you are. Remember what you’re here for. This story isn’t about you and it never was.”

Mac looks at him. Hall’s expression is grim, unwavering.

“This life you’re living is a lie, and you’re falling in too deep. Katherine isn’t your wife, and the child was never yours.”

“…It could have been,” slips out before Mac can stop it. The words rest heavy in the silence. 

“No,” Hall says. “It couldn’t.”

 

-

 

He lies in bed, staring at the ceiling. Katherine lies next to him. They are both awake and lying in the darkness, pretending to be asleep.

It's not the child, he thinks. Or it's not just the child. It's that he wants things that he cannot have, and that's the root of it all, the thing that's slowly killing him.

Grant Maclaren is dead.

Grant Maclaren is alive.

He's slowly chipping away at the pieces of who he was, as 3468, and one day he thinks he will wake up and not recognize himself at all.

 

-

 

He wakes up in the apartment. Sunlight pierces through his skin.

 

-

 

He wakes up at his desk in the office. Forbes is standing over him. “Mac,” he says, quietly. “Go home.”

 

-

 

He wakes up and wakes up and wakes up, exhausted, but never seems to remember falling asleep at all.

 

-

 

He’s on his way home from work when Marci appears in step beside him.

“Marci.” He startles. “What–?”

“Sorry,” she says, and he opens his mouth to say “what for” but then there’s a prick in his neck and he’s blinking, everything blurring, and he’s falling, falling – finally – into darkness.

 

-

 

He wakes up to the familiar smell of dust and old machinery. When he opens his eyes, the ceiling of their warehouse greets him. His head is throbbing, a drumming deep within his brain. Everything is foggy and unfocused. Voices filter in and back out like an incomprehensible mixture of sound.

“-like this.”

“…You think he’s going to be okay?”

“I think he just needs time. I didn’t – I just never would have guessed.”

It’s his team. He relaxes back into what’s probably the couch. He feels like there’s something he should be doing, something nags quietly at the back of his mind, but the couch feels so very comfortable, and his team is safe, so everything is probably alright for now. It’s been so long since he’s felt this at peace. His mind drifts. Conversation flows past him.

“He told me it happened after Helios.” Marci’s voice, soft and clear. “Said hallucinations and altered cognitive function was a side effect."

“Shit. That’s when the - Well, that would make sense, I guess.”

“I’ve just never seen him…lose control like that.”

“And you probably won't ever again. He’s learned to be good at compartmentalizing. Really good. It’s what makes him a great leader. But - ” a soft exhale - “he has a lot of heart.”

There is a lull in the conversation. They’re talking about him, he realizes dimly. Discussing him like a problem to be solved. This is important, he needs to focus. His mind struggles to alertness.

“He looks like he hasn’t slept in a week.” 

“He’s been the last one out of the office pretty much every night.” There’s a significant pause, and then: “I've, uh. Been checking security cameras. Half the time he leaves the house again around midnight. Heads to the park. Gets back early morning to change and freshen up and then he’s out again.”

Another pause.

“So he hasn’t been sleeping?”

“Don’t know. Can you blame him?”

They fall silent.

The room feels cold. There's an odd feeling in his chest he can't identify. He tries to shift very quietly, but then there's footsteps and when he opens his eyes the team are gathered around him, looking concerned. 

Marci steps forward, and he squints as memories flash through his mind.

“Hold on,” he says. “Did you really-?”

“Sedate you and bring you back to Ops?” Marci says. “Yeah.”

He stares.

She meets his gaze, unapologetic. “We thought it'd be for the best.”

“To...drug and kidnap me?” 

“We were worried,” Philip speaks up, looking slightly apologetic. “And you’ve been completely off-comm for the past five days.”

Something snaps back into perspective. Five days. When had that happened? He’d made it a point to check in with his team at least daily. It was something he’d insisted on after the kidnapping. But he’d been neglecting duty. He’d abandoned his team.

“You're right," he says. “Shit. You're right, I'm sorry. I should’ve-“

“Don’t." Carly cuts in sharply. “We're not blaming you for anything. We were just worried about you.”

He looks away. “I broke protocol,” he says. “I was the one who messed up, and Hall wasn’t – he was just following the Director’s orders. I shouldn’t have” – he exhales, sharply – “I lost track of the mission. That’s all.”

His team is silent. He doesn't look at them. His head is pounding, loud and heavy, and he can imagine what they're thinking, the looks they're sharing over –

The couch sags down next to him, and when he lifts his head Trevor is by his side, a look in his eyes that is soft and knowing.

“It’s more than just the mission,” Trevor says.

He shakes his head. "It shouldn't be."

But it is, because at some point along the way he’d lost track of where 3468 ended and Grant Maclaren began. He’d lost the line.

“My mom and Gary,” he says finally, “are at least four times younger than me. And all the kids at school, they’re all so young. They have no idea, any of them. But even then, every once in a while I forget that it doesn’t actually matter whether I fail a test or pass English class. And Grace -" Trevor stops and huffs, softly. 

“What I’m trying to say is that it gets to you. Live it long enough, and your cover becomes your life. Things get messy. You get attached.” His lips twitch up, wryly. “I like to believe that’s just a part of being human.”

A loud banging on the door interrupts them. Mac jerks up; everyone lunges for their weapons. He twists round for his gun but the sudden movement brings a wave of dizziness that has him faltering, clashing against the spike of adrenaline that snarls at him to _get the hell up, assess the threat, protect the team -_

“Stay down, boss!" one of them says, "We’ve got you covered.”

The door slams open and he looks up to see Carly leaning against the doorway, deceptively casual. Her gun sits barely hidden behind her back. The others are positioned in a semi circle around her, a defensive wall between him and the door.

“Whoa, there.” It’s Hall. Of course it is. “No need to get twitchy. I just want to talk to your —“

”Leave.” Carly cuts him off.

There’s a silence. 

“Is he doing okay?” Hall asks.

“We said _leave_.” Philip says, in a tone so cold Mac barely recognizes it. 

“Look,” Hall says, “I’m sorry, but it had to be done. We had our orders; it wasn’t personal. The baby had to die.”

Mac closes his eyes and breathes carefully through his nose. One. Two. Three.

A shot rings out, making a loud crack as it hits the concrete floor.

“Holy fuck!” 

“Last warning,” Carly says. “Get. The Fuck. Out.”

“Alright! Alright.” Shuffling footsteps fade away. The door slamming shut acts like a signal, tension bleeding out of the room. People slide their weapons back into holsters, relax their stances, shifting glances at each other before turning back to him as one. 

Mac clears his throat. “It might have been a mission,” he says.

Philip shrugs. “It can wait.”

“If it was really important the Director would've sent us a Messenger,” Marci adds.

He frowns. “But-“

“Boss.” Trevor says. “Let us help. Just for today, okay? We got your back.”

He wants to protest, because yes, he feels like hell, has felt for days but he needs to be stronger. Has to be stronger, for them.

“Look, I’m – I’ll be fine.” It’s all about being firm, he'd been taught. Projecting confidence. Team Leadership 101. “I know we’re all going through our own struggles, and mine shouldn’t be any different. I’ll just – “

He gets up and steps forward, but his body vehemently rebels. A wave of exhaustion crashes through him and he stumbles, grasping clumsily at something for support.

“Whoa, easy.”

“Easy there, boss. Your body might still be working off the drug.”

Firm hands grip his shoulders on either side and guide him gently back to the couch.

“Let us help,” Trevor says softly, from his left.

He looks at them, them looking back at him. “Okay, he says, exhales, shuddering. “I- okay.”

He slumps back into the couch, rubbing a hand roughly across his face. In the time that follows, Carly comes by with an extra blanket that she unfolds. She doesn’t say anything but as she drapes the blanket over him, her hand traces its way down to his and grips it for a moment before letting go.

Trevor stops by with some kind of tea, some variant he’s never tried and is unsure he wants to try. Philip stays at his desk, face turned towards the computer, but his eyes flick back towards Mac every so often, keeping watch.

He watches as his team arrange themselves around him like bodyguards, like protectors, and he realises that the warm feeling inside him is…safe.

He feels safe.

He trusts his team, these people whose loyalty he's somehow earned, and he knows without a doubt he would go to the ends of the earth to save them. That they would for him.

Marci is the last, and she raises an eyebrow when he meets her eyes. “I will not hesitate to tranq you again if I think it’s necessary,” she says calmly.

Getting threatened by his team members should not be this heartwarming, he thinks, and holds his hands up in surrender. 

After she's gone, he lets his eyes close. His mind, for the first time in days, is quiet. His team is here, and that means that things are alright.

Between them, they’ll save the world.


End file.
